On July twentieth 2023 Chelsea confronted Wrexham of their first pre-season recreation within the USA and gained that recreation 5-0.
Nearly precisely a 12 months later it was a case of deja vu as The Blues confronted Wrexham once more within the USA however this time round, they have been really fortunate to not be on the flawed facet of defeat. Enzo Maresca was very near shedding his very first recreation in cost if it wasn’t for a fantastic late save from Lucas Bergstrom, and a tidy end from Lesley Ugochukwu.
Wrexham are a division increased than they have been this time final 12 months they usually had one other 12 months of expertise with the identical supervisor and mainly the identical squad. I knew they have been going to trigger us issues, I knew they might be well-organised, and I knew they might be sitting off in a deep block permitting Chelsea to maintain the ball in deep areas. This may be powerful to interrupt down regardless of the degree is you’re dealing with.
What I additionally know is that we must always by no means over react to pre-season pleasant video games, particularly the very first recreation.
In fact, all of us need to see positives and progress because the video games go on and once more after all, it’s nice if we will get some wins on the board too for momentum. All of that’s completely necessary. However so is the truth that we shouldn’t over react to something. There was all the time going to be fatigue, all the time going to be sloppy passes, all the time going to be rustiness, and all the time going to be time wanted for Maresca to implement his system.
There was many positives to remove from this recreation regardless of conceding two and nearly shedding the sport.
After Chelsea scored the primary aim they dominated and used the ball nicely. After beginning off very gradual and cautious in possession, Chelsea quickly began transferring it faster with one-touch passing and being progressive with actions. This was our greatest spell of the sport from then till half time.
As all the time, the wholesale adjustments at half time then put us again to sq. one and in addition with much less high quality on the pitch. Wrexham started to come back out the blocks a bit extra and supplied extra of a risk. They obtained their objectives from battling and being sensible and exhibiting high quality within the remaining third. Chelsea appeared lackluster by many of the second half however nonetheless had first rate spells of possession too.
Chelsea bossed it with 75% possession and had 5 extra makes an attempt on aim (11) than Wrexham had (6). But Wrexham have been extra medical and higher with their efforts on aim, having 1 extra on track (4) than Chelsea did (3).
Chelsea made 767 passes in comparison with Wrexham’s 254, they usually additionally had a 91% passing accuracy in comparison with Wrexham’s 73%. However after all, none of that issues until you could have the tip product to get the scoreline constructive, which is all the time a very powerful stat in soccer.
We now have to keep in mind that we’ve many key gamers to nonetheless come again in as nicely, so we are going to see extra enhancements as we go on. Ultimately, we did nicely to get the draw right here, think about the meltdown if we misplaced!?
It was a very good little run round to stretch the legs and begin to put in place how they need to play for the remainder of the season.
There was negatives in addition to positives, and I’m certain that Maresca can have loads to remove and work on in consequence.
“I’m very pleased concerning the efficiency generally,” Maresca mentioned after the sport. “We began simply two weeks in the past, it’s necessary that us because the employees can begin to see the id of the group. Tonight it was fairly clear.
“For certain we’re going to add extra options.”
By the way, I discovered that remark fairly attention-grabbing. Is he saying they’re searching for options within the switch market or inside the squad? Both manner, he doesn’t seem totally content material with what he has seen.
We transfer on to our subsequent recreation now towards Celtic on Saturday night time at 9pm UK time with some positives to take and a pair good particular person performances because the rust continues to fall off.
